[in person in Portland] What is happiness, really?

Learn more about Premise. We offer guided conversations about life's big questions

🟡 Space is limited, register today!

Please register directly with Premise here:
https://www.premiseinstitute.com/event-details/what-is-happiness-really

It helps us keep things organized, since participants join from multiple places.

👉 Use the code `portlandmeetup` if you are unable to pay. The session will be no cost. All registration fees go directly to expanding Premise to communities nationwide.

Texts:
We will email you the readings when you register.

• Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
  (Selected chapter: “The Case for Tragic Optimism”)
• Zadie Smith, “Joy”
• Arthur C. Brooks, “To Get Happier, Make Yourself Smaller”

⏱️ Preparation: Less than 1.5 hours

### Session Description

What is happiness, really?
We live in a culture that treats happiness as both a personal responsibility and a measurable outcome. We are encouraged to manage it, improve it, and display it. But what if this framework misunderstands the experience altogether?

In this session, we’ll explore whether happiness can coexist with suffering, whether joy requires letting go of control, and whether a meaningful life might look different from a happy one. Together, we’ll examine what happens when we stop asking how to be happier and start asking what we are orienting our lives toward instead.

These readings create productive friction for conversation: happiness as a goal versus happiness as a byproduct, self focus versus self transcendence, and permanence versus momentary joy. They ask whether our pursuit of happiness reflects clarity about what we want, or confusion about what actually sustains a life.

### In this session, we will ask:

• If happiness can’t be pursued directly, what can we pursue that makes happiness more likely to emerge?
• Can joy and suffering coexist, or does one cancel out the other?
• What’s the difference between a “happy” life and a “meaningful” life?
• When does self improvement become self obsession?

### What Premise is like?

Join us in a welcoming, guided conversation space that invites people from all walks of life to think in public together with curiosity, openness, and respect. You do not need academic credentials or philosophical background. All you need is a willingness to read thoughtfully and reflect honestly.

We hope you will leave the session with new language for the difference between happiness and joy, a clearer sense of what meaning might ask of us, and a few ideas for reorienting daily life toward what actually sustains it.

• What practices help you “make yourself smaller” in a way that feels freeing rather than diminishing?